1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to incineration apparatus for disposing of solid and liquid waste.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the advent of the pre-packaged consumer goods and with increasing population, ever-increasing amounts of waste are generated. Generally, such waste is collected and delivered to land-fill sites. As land-fill sites become more scarce, waste incineration becomes a more desirable alternative, particularly if the incineration system can be utilized to generate electricity.
In addition, environmentally-safe disposal of toxic chemicals has become an important public issue. Many of the previously-proposed incinerators were directed towards incinerating sludge or partially-dewatered sludge, rather than directed towards resolving problems of disposal of miscellaneous mixes of metal, paper and plastic solid waste as well as toxic chemicals.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,476 (Suzuki) discloses an apparatus for drying partially dewatered sludge pellets with a heat source, followed by dried distillation and gasification producing residual ash as a by-product. While useful for incinerating sewage sludge, this apparatus is not well-suited to handling metals, plastics or toxic chemicals.
Some of the prior art devices, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,433 (Kramer), disclose an incinerator for processing solid and liquid waste providing two serially-connected combustion chambers. The first combustion chamber processes solid and semi-solid waste while the second chamber processes liquid waste, with the first chamber discharging into the second chamber to enhance combustion in the second chamber. While both Kramer and Suzuki disclose utilizing energy produced during one step of the combustion to enhance combustion in a later stage in the process, none of the prior art known to applicant utilizes a system wherein the large amounts of heat energy produced for combustion is utilized for any other purpose other than incineration.